Larsen: Energy Bill will generate jobs

As the House of Representatives readies for a close vote, Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., has come off the fence and announced support for sweeping legislation to lower greenhouse gas emissions and promote new energy sources.

“For me, this issue boils down to three words: Washington state jobs,” said Larsen, whose 2nd District stretches from Mukilteo to the Canadian border.

The so-called Waxman-Markey bill is opposed by Republican House leaders, and such right-thinking voices as Newt Gingrich and the Wall Street Journal editorial page, who argue that it will cost jobs.

Larsen, coming from a state in the forefront of renewable energy development, argues just the opposite.

“The American Clean Energy and Security Act is really a clean energy economic engine that will harvest American innovation to create millions of new jobs in the private sector, including family-wage manufacturing jobs that can’t be overseas, ” Larsen said in a statement.

He referred to jobs building wind turbines – the nation’s largest wind energy farm is on the Washington-Oregon border – installing appliances to make homes energy efficient, and turning forest products into “clean, renewable energy.”

Larsen was careful to say that the legislation “works for” such key constituents as workers at Ferndale’s Intalco aluminum plant, workers at Boeing’s Everett assembly plant, and employees at four northern Puget Sound refineries.

But Larsen’s statement gives hints at some of the concessions made by sponsors of the bill. A case in point are the refineries, which employ 2,500 people in his district.

“I am pleased that the American Clean Energy and Security Act provides two percent allowances for refiners (an improvement over the zero percent we started with) and removes the unworkable low-carbon fuel standard to help protect these good-paying jobs in our community,” he wrote.

All six of Washington’s Democratic congressmen are expected to vote for the clean energy bill.

Republican Reps. Cathy McMorris-Rogers and Doc Hastings are near-certain votes against it. Hastings is one of the most conservative members of Congress.

Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., has not yet announced how he will vote. Reichert scored an 85 (out of 100 ) score from the League of Conservation Voters in the last Congress, making him one of the most pro-environment Republicans in the House of Representatives.